The Immigrant Experience
“Popping out of your mom is like real estate. It’s all about location, location, location,” quips comedian Hasan Minhaj in his Netflix stand-up comedy special, Homecoming King.
He follows this up with “I popped out here — anybody brown, we popped out here? We made it.”
Hasan spins tales and jokes (many of them) about his upbringing and about immigrants’ lifestyles as a whole. He jokes about Tinder and the ubiquity of dating apps, of how modern love stems from the judgments and finger movements of swipes on a phone screen, and the contrast between our contemporary choices and that of his parents, a “photo-less Tinder” that bred the marriage of his parents due to just hearsay about his mother’s family — in particular, how she was rumored to be good-looking and owned a camera. That’s just one example of the differences between a first-generation immigrant and a first-generation American, growing up in vastly different cultures and contexts.
It’s not long before Hasan also pokes fun more directly at his childhood. When mentioning how his mother returned to India to finish medical school after his parents immigrated to the United States, Hasan describes the first eight years of his life as just him and his dad together in their Davis, Calif., home — “just the two of us, two brown dudes trying to make it in America — minus all of the unconditional love, I gotta be real.”
He follows this up with “You gotta be real; brown love? It’s very conditional.”
Though light-hearted, such a reference to his tough-love childhood manifests itself in other remarks about the expectations and beliefs that Hasan’s parents vocalized. It’s a joke, but that joke derives itself from some figment of truth in his childhood or upbringing. Undoubtedly, academic success was expected of Hasan, not merely encouraged or supported.
“It’s crazy,” Hasan shares. “We know nothing about our parents, and our parents know nothing about us.”
In the context of the mystery surrounding our parents’ immigration experiences and the hardships that they once faced, whether at their first home, their newest home, or anywhere along the way, Hasan’s sentiment could be interpreted a little more seriously to force reflection of immigrants’ sacrifices and challenges, buried under their perseverance and success. In the context of Hasan’s next joke, however, the script reverts itself to a focus of the immigrant trope: academics.
Why bother getting to know a child or parent when there are more pressing academic issues on the mind — “Why do you want to know about me? Get into Stanford!” Exaggerations aside, the laser focus that many parents and children of recent immigrant backgrounds have exemplifies this mindset, the eyes-on-the-prize mentality that unadulterated, undying dedication, hard work, and commitment will pave the way to the end goal.
Hasan cracks a lot of jokes about his life growing up with just his father around, but the overarching themes of racism and prejudice that he shares, still inflecting humor among even the most piercing and disheartening of stories, reflect the challenges faced by all generations of immigrants. The perception of difference, whether physical appearance or mental intellect, breeds intolerance, and despite not being a first-generation immigrant itself, Hasan still very much bears the weight of being a supposed “outsider” to this country.
After the tragedy and terrorism of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Hasan’s father pressured the entire family not to talk about politics or being Muslim in fear of the consequences for their family. In a horrifying demonstration of the racism and bigotry of others, the family received a threat over the phone, with someone detailing their very address in a death threat to Hasan’s father, and had the windows of their car smashed in, all of the glass obliterated.
Hasan, as a high-schooler, turned to his dad for resistance or defiance — “Dad, you’re the guy that will argue with the cashier at Costco when he doesn’t let you return used underwear. And now you want to be the bigger man?” — but his father kept his head down, quickly clearing the glass from the street and staying mum against such intolerance. Though racism, discrimination, and sheer ignorance sting, if not pose a serious, legitimate threat to the safety and well-being of immigrants and their families, as Hasan’s father saw put, doing nothing was sometimes just as, if not more, beneficial an option.
The generational gap between immigrants and their first-generation American children begs the question of who is right. What is right? Do the victims of racism, bias, prejudice, and intolerance fight back as best as they can, or is it better, if not safer, to ride the waves of hatred out until they ebb?
The labor, the academics, and the impact of immigrants on our country are all topics frequently discussed by immigrants, about them, and by and large throughout these fifty states. But what about the effect that we, the United States, of generations long established here, of administrators or politicians or the everyday “viligante,” have on immigrants? The immigrant experience is a two-way street, and it’s about time to highlight the realization that we all, as humans and citizens, have on one another.
